Thought of an idea for a thread last night when Gary and I were talking about Woolworth's and Members Only jackets. Thought it might be interesting to see what others remember about random things in the past and the different things and trends in eras we grew up in. Feel free to discuss them, or just post the things that come to mind.

Does anyone else remember pay toilets in department stores? You had to put a dime in the door to get it to open?

 

My mom was just talking about the Magic Fingers massaging beds.

 

I don't recall ever seeing one of those in person, just on tv shows.

 

I remember when you could smoke in malls. People would stomp their cigarette butts right on the floor when they were done too.

Amazing.......Bill

 

More amazing, our high school had a smoking area in the courtyard outside the cafeteria. Ninth graders could smoke in school.

I remember grown men wearing parachute pants as a fashion statement. Even worse, they wore them while listening to disco. Crazy **** men do to meet a woman.

 

I remember going to JC Penney's at our mall and old women were smoking in the women's clothes department. They had ash trays there and everything.

To think the new clothes you just bought would smell like smoke. That's insane!

My mom would yell at me for messing with those old smokeless ash trays.

 

I remember the teachers lounge being filled with smoke.

Also remember riding my bike to Walmart at 12 years old with my buddy and buying a carton of cigs for his mom no questions asked.

 

Yep. Remember that too. its crazy when you go and look back on it.

 

I remember when every department store had its own restaurant and toy department. Jcpenney was my favorite. They had a bobs big boy style diner. I love food.

 

My goodness you're right Rich. I do remember that........my how times have changed.------Bill

 

Crazy story here but our local clothing store had wire strings across the ceiling. The strings went from both cashier areas to a management/banking corner. Whenever they needed change they would put their request in a little tin cup that would travel to the corner. The person would put the money in this tin cup and it would travel back to the cashier. As a little kid I would just be enamored with it every time it was used! LOL

 

Yep, I remember people smoking in grocery stores and putting them out on the floor as well. I remember smoking in movie theaters myself.

Yep, we had that too. We called it the smoke hole.

Same here, can distinctly remember the hallway around the teacher's lounge being filled with smoke in elementary and middle school, and always wanted to go in there to see what was happening. Never did get to, it was some sort of mystical place.



Gary and I were talking about that last night, remembering them at JC penney and Woolworths.

I don't remember that. Sounds like some straight up ghetto ****.

 

Reminds me of the old Kmart along with the blue light specials.

Lets see...


Also I remeber when you could smoke in school, we called that area the grit pit.

I remeber when it wasn't felony neglect to let your 9 year old kid off the bus and go home by themselves and wait for their folks to get off work - granted that was me as both my parents had to work and I was well into my teens before my mom could be classified as a full time homemaker.

I remeber pay phones and public fountains

I remember friday night horror movies and saturday morning cartoons on major networks.

Gas less than a dollar a gallon.

I remember when 5.85 was a good starting wage and 8 bucks an hour was enough to get you out of the house and into an apartment with a few friends.

The blue law in Virginia

Which both remind me of when Wendy's had a salad bar, after paying the bills, and blowing some money of getting wasted, sunday was the recovery day and me and my roommates would pile in the car and head to Wendy's for the salad bar before we went back to the usual beer, butter and rice for the next week and a half.

And some local stuff;

I remember when you could cruise the strip and use profanity at Va Beach and When the car scene was so huge in Newport News (after having been pretty much kicked out of York County) that about a 1/4 of the parking lot at Patrick Henry Mall was filled every saturday - it was huge enough that people showed up to sell food and drinks. That all came to a crashing halt when "ricers" showed up and had something to prove amongst themselves which resulted in several brawls and a stabbing that ended up with a fatality.

Speaking of York County, in their efforts to drive the gearheads away, chirping the tires was grounds for a reckless driving ticket - Mostly given out to drivers who had installed the most aggressive shift kit in their auto trans.

Before there was a Monitor/Merrimack Bridge, When the James River Bridge was a a narrow two-lane affair that would barely allow to tractor trailers to pass and was low enough to the water that bad storms would wash over the bridge- if you google earth the bridge the fishing pier to the right is the original bridge, I also remember when the Coleman Bridge allowing access to Gloucester County was two-lanes.

Speaking of Patrick Henry Mall, I remeber when that was Yoder Dairy and the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport was called Patrick Henry Airport.

Fun Fact - When Patrick Henry Airport was upgraded to Newport News/Williamsburg International there was supposed to be a huge airshow however it was canceled due to the events of 9/11 and the airport never got the fanfare alot of investors had been looking for.

 

"I remember when you could get a hershey's for a nickel"

 

Yup Bob

I remember intermissions at movies so people could go smoke in the lobby. Some movies were so long they had two intermissions. I remember distinctly Stat Wars having one and I was like start the movie again already I want to see what happens.

I remember when there was no such thing as black Friday.

I remember nothing but paper bags at the grocery store.

I remember gas station with only two pumps and one kind of gas. Leaded. And when try's give you a free glass or dish with a full up. And has stations that actually had service bays.

I remember movie theaters that had only one movie showing. It was new every Friday. And they had balconies. And a curtain. And real butter on the popcorn and it was cooked in coconut oil.

I remember when people used to wear suits and dresses to church. Even the kids. And nobody wore jeans. That was a sin!

I remember when it was legal to drink at 18. I remember when if you got caught with booze under age you didn't get a ticket they just poured it out or kept it.

I remember mom and pop bookstore and hardware stores downtown on Main street.

And frozen tv dinners that sucked. And black and white tv's. And people having one TV in the living room the size of a dresser but the screen was only 27" maybe at most. 3 channels. No cable. No VCR. No microwave. And when the VCR came out it was Sony Beta and cost $999. And microwaves were $999. And until them stuff built in Japan was junk. And stuff built in Taiwan was crap!

And at 9 years old I rode the bus home alone and waited for my parents to get off work.

I also remember rotary phones you had to rent from Bell. And you could pay a little more and get the princess phone. And of course party lines. And prank calls with no caller ID.

 

I remember all of that. I rode the bus home to an empty house at 8 years old and stayed by myself until my parents came home from work.

Remember pay phones everywhere.

Remember gas well under a dollar a gallon.

Hell, I remember minimum wage being $3.35 an hour when I started working, and thought I was living high on the hog at the time.

I remember when Wendy's first opened around here and it was the talk of the town. A square hamburger patty? Remember the salad bar as well.



Speaking of Wendy's, does anyone remember the big rumor about Wendy's having worms in their hamburger patties?

 

I do remember the square party being a big deal. Don't remember hearing about the worms.

One thing I remember fondly was cokes in glass bottles. And te vending machine where you opened the little door on the side and pulled them out ice cold. Or the coolers at stores that had the lids on them that you slid open. No glass to see through.

And cans with actual pull tabs. And when you went to the grocery store the largest bottle of coke was a quart. And it was glass. No such thing as a 2 liter or 3 liter.

 

Yep, remember the pull tabs on drinks and the glass bottles behind a little narrow window door on the Coke machine . And there's a little mom and pop grocery near the house that still has one of those old huge chest Coke coolers with the slide back tops that they keep their beer in. Coldest beer in town by a long shot. Must have R12 in it, I don't care what anyone says, R12 units are much colder than this new environmentally friendly ****.

 

I do remember when the first 2 liter bottles came out, they were glass with an aluminum screw on cap.

 

Sheesh some of you guys are so old on here, idk how you figure out how to get on the Internet!

I remember our first computer (apple of course) that had 256kb of ram. I remember Doritos with the window on the bag. I remember cassette players and had an RCA from Long's. I remember when MTV and VH1 played music. I remember VCRs and watching VHS movies so much they actually wore out and lost the recording. I remember rubber bumpers on cars. Eh that's all for now.